


Casual Viewer

by danpuff



Series: Pacify Afterlife [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Afterlife, BDSM, Chickenpets, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Inspired by Fanfiction, M/M, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, One Shot, Pacify - Freeform, Pacifyverse, Parental Guidance Not Advised, Teacher-Student Relationship, Weird Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:33:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24867634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danpuff/pseuds/danpuff
Summary: Eileen Snape watches her son from the afterlife. She is not impressed.Also: one man's hell is another woman's heaven.ALSO: inspired by the Pacify series, by Chickenpets. Please go read.
Relationships: Eileen Prince/Tobias Snape, Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Series: Pacify Afterlife [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859563
Comments: 24
Kudos: 158
Collections: Pacify Fan-Works: Fanfics for a Fanfic





	Casual Viewer

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pacify Part 1: Shatter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21993898) by [Chickenpets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chickenpets/pseuds/Chickenpets). 



Eileen is not sure if she is in Heaven or Hell, or even Purgatory, but she does know that death has been kinder than life ever was.

Each morning she fixes breakfast for one and reads the paper and fills in the crossword. She tidies the house, then walks through the park, and plays chess with Edgar Bones. Back home she reads or works in her garden, or bakes sweets and knits sweaters for the orphans - the children whose parents have not yet joined them. Every Tuesday and Thursday night she plays Gobstones at the community center. Every Saturday morning she has brunch with friends.

Never does she hesitate to leave or return. Never does she worry about turning a corner. Never is she taken aback by cruel shouting or rough hands. Every day is quiet solitude, and it is almost paradise.

* * *

There are those in the afterlife who waste away, obsessed with the living. Eileen counts herself above such petty preoccupations. 

Only one soul she cares for remains on earth, and she does not care to visit him often. Every few months she checks that he is alive and well. Only a few minutes, and she leaves him be.

Severus is never happy, but that is his own doing. He is brilliant, her son, and wasting all of that mind and talent as a teacher. He might have amounted to so much more, if he hadn’t made such foolish choices. For all of his promise, Eileen tunes in to find him snarling at students or bickering with colleagues, and she is disappointed. 

Summertime is usually safe enough. Amelia Bones joins her Gobstones team one day, and talks of the Order, and of her niece Susan, and when Eileen gets home that night, she turns on her television. Summertime is safe by day, but nighttime is always questionable when visiting one’s child. More questionable tonight, when she catches sight of her son rutting against a young boy in bed, fully clothed. Like _animals_. Face flushing, Eileen huffs her disgust and turns it off. 

And does not look in again for a few months. 

When she does look again, it is daytime. Her son is heading a class, but not his usual Potions. For this alone, Eileen settles in her chair with her knitting. Defense Against the Dark Arts. And there is a boy in this class, staring at her son. The Potter boy, she realizes, lookalike of that rotten child who tormented her Severus. And, Eileen realized after a time, the boy who had been squirming beneath him in bed over summer. 

That could not be right. Not a student. Not the Potter boy. Despite herself, Eileen rewinds, back to that night, and pauses the screen. Eileen stares. And stares. Perhaps her son had reason for past sins, for falling in with the Death Eaters as he did. But molesting one of his students, and this one, no less, is a new low Eileen had not thought him capable of. Punishing the son for the sins of the father, will he? 

At this thought, Eileen smiles to herself.

* * *

In the basement of Eileen Snape’s home resides her husband Tobias. There is no gambling to be done in the basement, no whores to harass, no drinks to wile away his afterlife. There is no enjoyment to be had at all, for the dead do not really need to eat or sleep. There is only Tobias and the second television. 

Tobias is a Muggle, and in life this never stopped him terrorizing his magical wife and son. But here, Tobias is hers to command. So when Eileen enters the basement, she casts the usual spells, binding her husband to the recliner he so loved in life. He spends more time than he would like in that recliner, of late. Though they have shared this hell for years and years, he still struggles and spits and curses, but Eileen does not mind. She is not scared of him anymore. 

“I have a treat for you, husband,” Eileen says, summoning the remote. Though presently their son is teaching a class, Eileen has mastered the art of the television. For while Eileen has not fallen into bad habits herself, she knows how to employee the machine to torment her prisoner. She had not been sorted into Slytherin for nothing, and if the Prince name had fallen into disfavor over the years, it was not for lack of intelligence or tenacity. It was in her blood, and in the blood of her child, and together Eileen and Severus would deliver unto Tobias every bit of hell he had given them. 

It takes a few minutes to work all of the controls, but soon Tobias is viewing scene after scene of their child and his plaything. Eileen pays no mind to the images on the screen, and does not care to. That is her son, for one thing, and his inclinations are disturbing, for another. She knows enough to know that Tobias has hours of footage to view, all of the ways Severus ties up and hits and fucks Harry Potter. 

In fact, the first scene involves their son performing oral sex, which should be sufficiently emasculating in Tobias’s eyes. 

“Bitch!” Tobias hollers after her as she retreats upstairs.

* * *

Eileen’s timing is poor, for as she descends the staircase, she can hear the debauched moans of a teenager, and the lewd tone of an adult man’s voice. Eileen tries to tune out the words. “ _Take it, take it_ ,” are only garbled sounds, but the words, “ _Fuck - I love you_ ” lodge into her mind, repeating over and over again. Despite herself, Eileen looks up. Sees the child sucking on the man’s fingers. Sees the pumping hips. Sees the boot stomp on the pole that is holding skinny legs apart. 

She blinks at the screen. Sways where she stands. Turns to Tobias who is red-faced and snarling.

“- filthy **faggots**!” Most of the words are incoherent, but Eileen catches some of them as the next scene starts. In the background their son is on his knees, sucking off the boy, but Eileen and Tobias are glaring into one another’s eyes. “- violent - barbaric - vile - _perverted_ \- _**deviant**_ -” 

His mutterings trail off and over the sound of his panting, and the moaning on screen, Eileen says icily, “Yes, well…He learned it from you, didn’t he?”

* * *

The next time Eileen looks in on Severus, he is among Death Eaters, and he has another young boy at his feet. This one is blond and pale and beautiful and broken. She is glad she did not give into the temptation before, to look deeper, to see if he had been truthful in professing his love. It could not be true. Her belly is full of poison, churning and bubbling, spitting acid into her throat. Firmly she hits the power button, leaves her thumb pressed into it for a long time, staring still at the blank screen. 

Though she has no desire to see more, she arranges a new montage for Tobias. And though her husband is suitably disturbed by the magic, and the murder, and the bruised porcelain skin, he is too stupid to see what Eileen sees. That for all of the nudity, and the hitting, and the downcast gray eyes, she never actually sees Severus raping the boy. 

So she sits. And she wonders.

* * *

Over brunch one Saturday, with Amelia and Muriel and Merope, Eileen hears the name _Potter_ and tunes out of Merope’s morose story, and into the nearby conversation. Two men and the waitress conversing about how the Potters have turned into tele-holics, and how they may need intervention. Eileen is not surprised that the Potters would stoop to such levels, but her haughtiness fails as heat rushes to her face. 

Eileen is glad to think ill of James Potter, yes, but his telly addiction can mean only one thing. If Eileen sees her son, then James can see his. And if James has seen his son, he’s more than likely seen hers. James Potter _knows_ what sick proclivities her son gets up to. 

“Eileen, are you alright?” Muriel asks.

“Yes. Quite alright,” Eileen says faintly.

* * *

It is well and good that Lily and James are hiding at home, for Eileen is not sure she could look either in the eye, if she met them on the street. For a time, Eileen resists temptation. Until a man named Ted joins their Gobstones team, and relays news of the war. 

War, and her son is caught in it again. Her only child among the monsters. Her only child who has sexually abused one, if not two, teenage boys. Her only child who has blood on his hands, who has wasted away in that godforsaken castle, her only child who insults students and - and -

Her only child who had stolen her heart with his first breath. Her only child who she couldn’t protect from a pathetic Muggle. Or a pureblood prat. Or from biased teachers. Or from the seduction of Dark magic. Her only child with his good grades, and his passion, and his determination. Her only child with his books and his potions. With his spells. Her only child with so much to offer, always overlooked, and Eileen not knowing how to care for any child, let alone one so precocious or so wounded. 

Her only child, for all of his flaws, in love.

Her only child, for all of his flaws, in _danger_. 

Rather than knit in silence, Eileen masterfully works the controls, to watch a film of her son’s most recent history. First, she catches up on the war. Murdering Albus Dumbledore…Eileen sits up straighter here. Her son, defeater of the great Albus Dumbledore! Then…fleeing the school. Meetings with the Dark Lord. An ugly tale of rape and abuse, that is only a tale - because Severus is sparing that boy from actual rape and abuse. The murder of the Minister. Stepping into the role of Hogwarts headmaster. Allying with the poltergeist. Sabotaging the Carrows. Protecting the students.

Eileen knows addicts who waste away in front of screens. Muriel’s daughter Tabitha spends her days watching her lazy son on the telly as _he_ watches telly. She knows parents and grandparents who view shopping trips and picnics and household chores, living vicariously through those they left behind. How many of them, Eileen wonders, have soldiers to fear for? How many have actual stories to be invested in, rather than mundane daily activities? 

When the weekend comes, Eileen skips brunch and does not leave the house at all. Hours upon hours upon hours are spent in the past, watching Severus’s love story unfold. A student he despised, turned vehement seducer, turned wanton lover. A fragile boy appealing to all of the broken pieces of a cruel man. Harry Potter is only a boy, yes, but stripping away titles and names and faces, it is clear to see what draws them together. And it is with this detached perspective that Eileen views the drinking and the hitting and the fucking. Clinical eyes see only two faceless men who kiss and cling; anonymous hands and mouths and cocks; frenzied thrusts are only pixels on the screen and fevered moans are only noise. 

But when Severus tells Harry he loves him, for the first time, the image shatters. The breath freezes in her throat, chest tight, flush creeping in as her eyes dart away. Not so anonymous, those sweating bodies. Anguish, not coldness, when the boy turns away from Severus’s comfort. 

More difficult now, to see the boy’s flesh bruised and battered. A child, begging for abuse. A man who should have said no. A man just as lost and confused, a man who loves him. 

There is a drug overdose. And a hearing. And love returned. And Dumbledore’s callousness. There is fear and plotting and teaching and sex and sex and sex. There is a flare of red sparks and the breaking of two hearts that at last frees a tear from her eye. She has not cried in a long time, and she never knows it’s there. It dries on her face as she continues on. A yellow flower on a bed, and a cactus on a desk, and a red shirt in a closet. There is screaming and crying and crushing the unbearable sorrow down behind a vicious mask. 

Eileen’s hands tremble when the film ends and she shuts it off. She sets the remote aside and presses both hands over her chest, as if she can physically push it all back down where it belongs.

* * *

“We missed you on Saturday,” Amelia says.

“…the war,” Eileen admits after a moment.

“Ah,” Amelia says with a stiff nod.

Because all Amelia knows is that Severus is a traitor. And that he is Eileen’s son. 

So no one speaks the rest of the game.

* * *

Eileen leaves the telly running while she bakes bread. Tobias begins shouting from the basement, and when Eileen strides towards the noise, she sees Harry Potter on his hands and knees, her son behind him, fucking him. “ _Imagine how you’ll feel going back in there, with my come **dripping** out of you._” Severus is saying, and Eileen halts in her tracks, mouth falling open, eyes round. 

“Severus!” she scolds, as if he can hear her. 

She is frozen, momentarily forgetting what she came here for. “ _I bet you liked that at school, didn’t you? Sitting in my classes with your mouth watering for my cock_?” Eileen is crimson, she can feel it. Tobias is shouting again, spurring Eileen forward, but he is not loud enough to drown out the words, “ _Sore and tender from what I’ve done to you. Trying to hide your bruises -_ ”

“What is it?” Eileen hisses. 

Tobias is just as red as she is, spittle flying from his lips as he growls, “TURN THAT FILTH OFF, ‘LEEN. I WON’T HAVE IT. NOT IN MY HOUSE. I WON’T!”

For the first time in many years, Eileen flinches back from her husband. Though he is tied to his recliner. And the magic of this place won’t let him near her, even if he was free. 

“BAD ENOUGH TO HAVE A PONCE FOR A SON, OH NO. I HAVE A _FREAK_ FOR A WIFE. WATCHING YOUR OWN SON. YOU’RE DISGUSTING. HAVE YOU NO SHAME? ARE YOU GETTING OFF ON THIS? INCESTUOUS WHORE!”

“Quiet,” Eileen whispers. Her wrist jerks as she raises her wand, but she controls herself enough to cast the spell. Tobias chokes as the gag appears in his mouth. “Be quiet, Tobias.”

This is Tobias’s Hell, not hers, she reminds herself as she climbs the stairs. He cannot hurt her anymore. He is beneath her rule now. Eileen is not small or weak or useless. Not anymore. 

Severus and Harry are clothed by the time she sinks onto the couch. Their words do not penetrate her mind. It is not until Severus returns to Hogwarts that she is calm enough to think. She has missed some important scenes, she realizes, and turns her focus on catching up. She has been tuning in on the wrong moments, of late, entirely missing the sword and the food and weeks of emotional distance. Then the revelation - soulmates. The Granger girl seemed intelligent enough, but believing such nonsense? It is enough, though, to break Harry’s barriers, for him to surrender himself to Severus once more. In love, and content.

* * *

And it does not last, that contentment.

* * *

They do not see each other again for over a month. They communicate through bracelets. Her son is a romantic fool. And despite the darkness around them, and the darkness ahead, the darkness of his eyes is lit up - radiant black fire, lapping every secret, every treasure, from that silver band. Its loving glow warms a mother’s weary heart - warm and soft as fresh baked cakes.

* * *

As cold and brittle as an icicle when Ted bangs on her door. “Battle’s on! Battle’s on!” And he’s running down the street as she reaches the door. Eileen flies to her armchair and clutches the remote as the screen comes to life. Everything is moving too fast; too much violence and too much chaos. The murder of a rapist. Facing the Dark Lord. _Not now, not now, not Severus_ , Eileen thinks. All she can feel, and see, and hear is the racing of her heart. Words and images blur together. Her son’s face still on the screen, pale and sharp and radiant. The snake dies, and the boy summons him - and Eileen remembers that the child will die. And she is not sure her Severus will survive it. His heart will crumble, and he with it. And even if she loves him, she does not want him here. He deserves more than this meaningless eternity. Severus has so much life in him - too much to fade away now.

And his boy, too, with that incredible power - that incredible bravery and strength. 

“Let them live, let them live, let them live.” The words have no sound, but her lips form the shape and her pounding heart shouts the prayer. 

Eileen watches on through the night, and the morning. Tobias shouts, but she cannot hear him. There is madness. And sorrow. And fury. The battle is a frenzy of blood and tears and the violent crackle of spells. Not every word makes sense, or every picture, but the horror of it spills across the room. The Dark Lord’s threat, “ _I WILL SKIN HIM IN SHREDS. BREAK HIS BONES. BLIND HIM AND CUT OUT HIS TONGUE._ ” echo in her head, an endless loop as they leave for the headmaster’s office, and the pensieve. The words tumbling until they no longer make sense, and she has new words to haunt her, Harry Potter voicing, “ _You knew. You knew you were going to lose me, but you loved me anyway, didn’t you_?” Over and over. Through the blur of her tears, she can just make out Harry grasping Severus’s arm, removing that dark stain from her son’s life. 

And putting him asleep, to spare him. 

The screen turns black before she realizes what she’s done. Thumb digging hard into the power button. In the darkness and stillness she sits. Tobias has stopped shouting. There is only the beating of her heart - nonexistent though it may be. 

The dead do not need to eat, or sleep, or breathe, or move. The dead need for nothing. Want for nothing. Senses are dulled, lulled to sleep by the innate insignificance of everything. They are awake, though, and aware, and they feel. But Eileen has not felt much until now, with the threat of two bright souls being snuffed out, and condemned to this nothingness. 

The knock on the door is a trick of the imagination, but she checks anyway. There is no one there. Only the expectation that her son might arrive any moment. 

So Eileen returns to her chair, and watches some more.

Declarations of love, healings in the hall, limp body in large hands, and _havoc_ \- havoc across the grounds, and in the castle. Eileen cannot bear to watch, but she cannot bear to look away. And because the boy is alive, she dares to hope - and she prays again, and again, and again. “Let them live, let them live, let them live.” Silent, and desperate. 

Tobias is shouting again, about the racket, so Eileen turns up the volume, until it is blaring. Until the walls tremble with every word. 

“ _Oh yes. That’s all I’ve ever been, isn’t it? A trained **dog**._” 

The boy, Harry, was supposed to be the one - the Chosen One - prophesied conqueror of the Dark Lord. But his fate, really, had been to die. And it was not Harry who ended that monster’s unholy existence. 

It is Severus, with a curse - his own curse - cutting into that inhuman throat. Eileen shuts her eyes, fingers clenched so tightly together they hurt. It is dirty and crude and she does not look again until she hears, “ _Avada Kedavra_.” 

A bloody footprint. A blue fire. True love’s kiss. Violent and beautiful. An exhale expels every toxic fear, frail body shaking with the force of it. Fingers press to quivering lips as Eileen smiles.

Her son. The hero.


End file.
